How to Protect Your Android “HummingBad”

We protect your Android keys to the threat of “HummingBad” the new malware that is affecting millions of devices.

This week we knew the disturbing report of the security company “Check Point” about the growing threat “HummingBad”, a Chinese malware that is spreading like lightning and already reaches 10 million infected devices. Let’s see how to detect and remove it.

Detection and Removal

The first action we must carry out is to confirm if your device is infected or not by malicious software. Countries with a greater spread of “HummingBad” China and India but the threat is at these times overall.

The easiest way to know if you have been infected is to install a security application, if possible, the official store of Android applications Google, “Google Play”. We have several options here as “Zone Alarm” from the very “Check Point”, but also applications LookOut, AVG or Avast, famous antivirus companies for their desktop.

In the case of not being in danger, we will have finished with the process, but it is advisable to leave the chosen security application installed to prevent future infections. If instead, the application has detected malware we will have no choice but to proceed with removal.

Unfortunately, it seems that this time completely eliminate the threat of our device is not an easy task, so the recommendation is simply to factory reset the device.

To do this first will make a backup on your computer (via USB cable) or microSD card everything we want to keep, especially paying attention to our precious photos. It is also recommended to enable synchronization services data (contacts, mail, calendar, etc.) in the case that we have a Google account or similar. Then reset the device to factory. The menu may vary from one Android device to another but usually, find it in “Settings> Backup and Reset> Factory data reset.” Finally, we reintroduce our data on the device and go restoring the saved data.

And now that

Whether we have had the misfortune to have been infected as but we must consider two basic considerations for the future.

The first, as mentioned in the article, is the need for a security application on the device installed to prevent these situations. The second is to only install applications from trusted sources such as “Google Play” or other stores trusted applications, thus minimizing the chances of being infected by malware.